<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>destiny drifting by rememberhow</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24649606">destiny drifting</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/rememberhow/pseuds/rememberhow'>rememberhow</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Carmen Sandiego (Cartoon 2019)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Exes, Future Fic, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Mentions of Murder, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Slow Dancing</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 03:07:37</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>9,574</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24649606</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/rememberhow/pseuds/rememberhow</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>VILE, on maelstrom's order, takes hideo's life. seeking to avenge his brother's death, shadowsan goes rogue.</p>
<p>ten years later, carmen is still angry.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Carmen Sandiego | Black Sheep/Shadowsan, Carmen Sandiego | Black Sheep/Tigress | Sheena, Chase Devineaux/Shadowsan</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>32</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. to meet again</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>messy plot and age gap ship ahead. woohoo</p>
    </blockquote><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>at a masquerade ball, two old accomplices reunite.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    
<p></p><div><p>
<span class="small"><i>You discover who you are by acting naturally.</i>       <b> - Japanese proverb</b></span>
</p><p> </p><p>
<i>So, Red, you still won’t tell me what you’re here for?</i>
</p><p>
Carmen manages a small smile, catching Zack’s questioning gaze in the rear view mirror. Ivy won’t look at her. Carmen knots and unknots her fingers on her lap, twisting and crumpling the fabric of her dress in her palms.
</p><p>
They’re stuck in traffic, except this time, she’s grateful for it. Rain blurs Antwerp’s streets to embers of yellow and orange against the slow-moving night. She wonders what would happen if she told Zack to change course and take her anywhere else. He’d do it, of course, he’d keep driving on and on until the city faded away. They’d both hold her while she cried and then they’d take her back to San Diego.
</p><p>
“I didn’t want you to worry. But you probably figured it out on your own already, Player.”
</p><p>
<i>Yeah, you’re right</i>. He pauses, probably chewing on his tongue. What he wants, really, is for Carmen to admit it out loud, which he thinks is probably too sadistic, so he shuts his mouth.
</p><p>
“You’re not gonna berate me for it?”
</p><p>
<i>Figured the siblings already have.</i>
</p><p>
He isn’t wrong. Ivy came along, but she hasn’t spoken to anyone the whole night. She’s glaring out the window, lip caught between her teeth.
</p><p>
Carmen half-hopes that the night proves Ivy right—that this was a mistake and wouldn’t do anyone any good. Maybe that’d make it easier to move on.
</p><p>
<i>But, Red. Promise me you’ll be careful, okay?</i> Just promise me you won’t let yourself get hurt again, Player wants to say, but again, he can’t. He doubts Carmen would listen, anyway.
</p><p>
“Of course.”
</p><p>
<i>I said promise me.</i>
</p><p>
Carmen tries not to think too much about the implications of the words when she says, “I promise.”
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
She almost thinks he isn’t going to show, and maybe a part of her is glad for it. They must have made a miscalculation or he somehow found out about their plan.
</p><p>
Carmen searches Zack’s eyes for some glimmer of hope. He wasn’t supposed to join her on the dance floor, but he didn’t want to see her awkwardly standing around or constantly glancing behind her in the arms of every stranger. They’re done pretending. His gaze, behind his glittery volto mask, is regretful.
</p><p>
In his arms, she twirls them around so she faces the grand doors again. The live orchestra stops.
</p><p>
The doors open slowly, a sliver of the night peeking through. The man entering is dressed in the same form-fitting blacks and whites as every other man attending the ball, but it’s what he wears over his face that catches Carmen’s attention. The bauta is stark white, sharp straight edges tracing the jaw and joining in a jutting point of chin. She can’t tell if he’s looking at her. She can’t tell if he recognizes her, behind her moretta, ten years later.
</p><p>
Carmen, biting hard into the bit in her mouth, tightens her grip on Zack’s back and turns them the other way immediately.
</p><p>
“Is that him?” he whispers close to her ear.
</p><p>
She squeezes his hand, fingers interlaced in his.
</p><p>
Zack nods and spins her around. He keeps his grip on her steady.
</p><p>
Carmen can’t shake the thought that if she were a better person, she’d forget about what she came here to do and let him dance with her all night.
</p><p>
Instead, she takes a step back.
</p><p>
Zack mimics her but he doesn’t let go of her hand. “I could come with you.”
</p><p>
“Zack,” Carmen says through teeth, like an apology. He can’t see her shaky smile, but he understands.
</p><p>
She lets go of his hand and wades into the crowd, stepping around almost gingerly. 
</p><p>
Yes, she needs to be alone for this, but probably not for the reasons that Zack thinks. For one, her smile thins out to a hard flat line as soon as he’s out of sight.
</p><p>
And, weaving through the dance floor, Carmen lets herself become angry.
</p><p>
It’s not only the past decade. Not only Maelstrom’s letter and the countless nights she’s spent trying to understand how things ended up this way. Not only the wondering, the chasing, the bloodshed she always walked in on too late until she stopped chasing him. It’s <i>everything</i>. Fraser and a dead father and his would-be assailant. A house on fire, a crying baby. 
</p><p>
She wonders, now, when was she happy? Strangely, the first thing that comes to mind is her childhood at VILE Academy. She was happy, then, even if she didn’t know the truth. They never loved her, but they were good to her.
</p><p>
Carmen thinks of after, too. The boy behind the screen who got her off the island and watched her become the woman in red. Two wild and adventurous siblings from Boston who would lay their lives down for her. The man who was on her side all along, on the <i>good</i> side, until he wasn’t.
</p><p>
And yet, when she finds him, in spite of the hot fury burning in her lungs, there’s a moment when she still has to search for her breath. The man is still by himself, staring at her as she approaches. The dark piercing eyes are as familiar as they are jarring, and Carmen realizes she can no longer read them.
</p><p>
A single violin, high and shrill, sounds out, and soon the whole ensemble follows. The slow and heavy composition thrums straight through to her chest. A dozen people twirl around them, laughing and talking. She forgets they’re even there.
</p><p>
Carmen extends her left hand, fingers bent in invitation, palm open in asking.
</p><p>
Shadowsan takes his eyes off her, craning his neck to look upward at the dimming lights. Carmen’s gaze follows the long, pale stretch of his throat, exposed and vulnerable.
</p><p>
He looks back down at her.
</p></div>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. death and what follows</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>hideo is dead, and shadowsan is done playing nice.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    
<p></p><div><p>
Shadowsan stared at the city and didn’t really see anything at all. The sky looked endlessly blue and strangely, hopelessly distant, but he couldn't dwell on any desire too much.
</p><p>
His jaw wouldn’t stop twitching. The letter felt like lead in his left pocket. It had been there for three days, but he hadn’t looked at it since tucking it away. In his mind, he traced Maelstrom’s perfect script: <i>Do not bother coming to save your brother. Hideo is long dead.</i>
</p><p>
Blatant bait, except that raw footage had been sent to Player shortly after the letter arrived at Carmen Brand Outerwear’s doorstep—sounds and images impossible to forget.
</p><p>
Carmen was fumbling with her earring as she came out of the washroom, leaning on the door jamb and watching him from behind. He kept his eyes trained on the bright and cloudless sky.
</p><p>
He couldn’t bring himself to ask her not to say anything for fear that he would crack. He couldn’t bring himself to look at her.
</p><p>
But they made a promise to each other, once.
</p><p>
He could not say <i>I want to run</i>. He could not tell her that there was a venom frothing in his veins, a terrible restless sort of energy that he hadn’t felt in a long, long time. It made him want to hurt people—this was an open admission to himself.
</p><p>
He began to wonder if he’d already be waiting in the shadows, somewhere, right now, if this crimson ghost weren’t here.
</p><p>
But he could say, “I’m going to Japan alone.”
</p><p>
“What? Why? Shadowsan, you’re not—”
</p><p>
“I wish to spend some time by myself. I need some time to…” Shadowsan exhaled through his nose, tightening his shoulders, jaw twitching. He closed his eyes a moment, tried again to parse the thick fog in his mind, and opened them. He turned to face her. “… reflect.”
</p><p>
“Are you sure?” she asked warily. She had straightened, regarding him from a distance, quiet.
</p><p>
“Yes. You have to trust me.”
</p><p>
He started for the door, but Carmen caught his wrist before he left.
</p><p>
“You will come back, won’t you?”
</p><p>
Shadowsan found her gaze, his expression flickering between fury and amusement and—uncertainty. “Yes. Of course.”
</p><p>
Later, when he was certain no one else was in the building, Shadowsan went to the training room and shoved the shoji aside and charged forward, the ball of his foot meeting the punching bag with a resounding slap.
</p><p>
And Shadowsan is a silent creature, but a guttural sound ripped from his throat, sounding throughout the entire building.
</p><p>
He landed swiftly and pounded at it with his fists, circling it like it was a human target, releasing harsh growls every time his knuckles made impact. His lungs caught fire quickly. He ignored it.
</p><p>
The next blow sent the bag grazing the ceiling.
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
Carmen drove him to the airport. She had declined Zack’s offer to drive Shadowsan, and after short goodbyes from the siblings, they were off.
</p><p>
She pulled up to the curb, turning to Shadowsan, who looked straight ahead. She glanced at his clenched hand and thought about grabbing it.
</p><p>
“I trust you, Shadowsan,” Carmen said.
</p><p>
He should have kissed her, or something. Said something.
</p><p>
He just nodded and exited the vehicle. She loitered a bit, watched him disappear through the double sliding doors, and drove back home.
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
Five thousand miles away, the first thing Shadowsan did was steal the daisho back.
</p><p>
The second was allow himself to become ruthless.
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
Shadowsan was supposed to return in two weeks.
</p><p>
He never did.
</p><p>
He was alive, Carmen knew that much; the message sent to Player said as much.
</p><p>
<i>I know she won’t believe me unless I tell her myself.</i> His voice crackled five thousand miles away. <i>Carmen. Do not come in search of me. I do not wish to be found, and I will not return to San Diego with you, or rejoin your team.</i> A pause. <i>Goodbye.</i>
</p><p>
She didn’t believe it, of course. Player tracked him down to Colombia and she found him—unmistakable fury chiseled deep into the lines of his face, and the daisho of Matsumoto Castle in each hand, either sword pointed at someone. They used to be associated with VILE, Player would later find out, known to have worked alongside Maelstrom for some years before severing ties and laying low.
</p><p>
She stopped him that time. The swords clattered to the ground as she incapacitated him just long enough for the two to escape, only for him to roll her over and slam her shoulders against the ground of the unfamiliar house they were in. She had never seen him so—<i>unrestrained.</i>
</p><p>
“I told you not to find me,” he roared, white hot gaze searing into hers.
</p><p>
“What are you doing?” she said, trying to search his face for anything other than fury, some ounce of the man she’d come here to find. “Why are you doing this?”
</p><p>
When she thought  there was a flicker of something like remorse—sorrow, maybe—he let go of her and disappeared along with the daisho.
</p><p>
So Carmen went home to her family and the fight to help people, and she never searched for him again.
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
Gunnar took up smoking again. Faculty insisted he quit when he first joined. He’d tried all sorts of therapies, even let Saira brainwash him once. It had worked, for a while.
</p><p>
But there was no use now. His days were numbered. Might as well have kept himself happy and only semi-aware of his surroundings while he could.
</p><p>
“Killing me won’t bring your brother back.” His eyes flitted up lazily to Shadowsan’s. The man overshadowed Maelstrom like a huge hawk, taking a moment to acknowledge its catch before diving in with sharp beak and talons. “This has gone on long enough, hasn’t it? Aren't you tired? Sit, let’s have wine.”
</p><p>
Shadowsan tugged the cigarette out of Maelstrom’s mouth, leaning in close enough to smell the sourness in his breath. “You’re right, Gunnar,” he hissed through his teeth. “Your death will not bring Hideo back. But it will bring me <i>great joy</i>.”
</p><p>
“We used to be friends,” Gunnar muttered. Shadowsan drew his sword.
</p></div>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. where is solace</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>carmen and shadowsan find some sort of comfort—in different people, but in very much the same way.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    
<p></p><div><p>
<b>i. cat</b>
</p><p>
Sheena plays it cool. She always has, from the moment she decided to let go of Carmen’s throat and weave through the city crowd, hoping to hell Carmen was following her as she ducked into some dingy, poorly-lit bar—to now, standing in her apartment, watching Carmen fold the last of her sweaters away.
</p><p>
One of them doesn’t belong to her, but Sheena won’t say anything.
</p><p>
“I’ll be back,” Carmen says. <i>I just don’t know when</i>, which is why she’s packing all her things. “I just—need to do this.”
</p><p>
“Yeah, I know.” Sheena presses her lips together.
</p><p>
She knows Carmen will come back. Just not to her.
</p><p>
Which makes this a sort of goodbye.
</p><p>
None of them acknowledge that, though.
</p><p>
Sheena pauses at the open door, balancing on one leg like a flamingo. “Hey.”
</p><p>
Carmen smiles weakly at her. “Hi.”
</p><p>
“I think I read somewhere that destinies have an affinity for coalescing.” Carmen raises a brow. She knows, by now, that whenever Sheena says <i>I read</i>, she means <i>I believe</i>. She's letting her guard down, speaking from a place underneath the claws and sharp teeth. “Maybe we’ll meet again?”
</p><p>
Carmen thinks about reaching out, tucking that unruly lock of platinum behind her ear. She doesn’t.
</p><p>
“Hopefully not on opposite sides,” she says instead, smiling a little more sadly. “I’ll miss you, Tigress.”
</p><p>
Tigress. Carmen hasn’t called her that since they—since this all started.
</p><p>
Sheena opens her mouth, closes it, opens. Her hand curls around the door, but without her claws, there’s just pain under dull nails. “Well you don’t want to miss your flight. You should go.”
</p><p>
Carmen nods, and she turns.
</p><p>
Sheena watches her walk down the hall and disappear beyond the corner.
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
“It’s tiring, sometimes.”
</p><p>
Carmen glanced up from her data pad.
</p><p>
“You know. Playing the bad guy.” Sheena squinted into the dull green eyes of her mask, staring back at her. “Sometimes I just want to claw this thing’s eyes out. Leave this life behind.”
</p><p>
“Then join me.” Carmen rose from where she was sprawled over the bed, crawling over to Sheena’s side, gleaming hope in her wide eyes. “Join our team. You could help us defeat VILE. I mean, the others—especially Ivy—would take some time to get used to you, of course, but I would—”
</p><p>
“That wasn’t a plea, Carmen,” she said, shaking her head with a sad smile. Sheena patted her hand. “And you know it’s not that simple.”
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
Sheena was venomous. She was pliant and agile and quick quick on her feet, quicker with the claws. She was sharp teeth grazing along delicate skin. She was jumping over dizzying heights under the full moon, sly in the way she slinked into the darkness and never looked back… 
</p><p>
Except.
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
Sheena kicked off the wall and pounced at Carmen, knocking her to the ground. Straddling her, she pinned both Carmen’s arms above her head. “Yield,” Sheena said, breathless, grinning.
</p><p>
“You wish.” Carmen kneed Sheena hard enough to make her grip falter. They surged up at the same time. Sheena barely parried a side kick, and Carmen was relentless, backing her into a wall.
</p><p>
Carmen bracketed her head with both arms and shoved a thigh between her legs. “Yield,” she ordered, unsmiling, steely eyes veiled by sweat-slick crimson hair.
</p><p>
Sheena's eyes wandered, searching, asking, <i>How did I make you trust me? Can</i> I <i>trust</i> you<i>?</i>
</p><p>
“This time,” she mumbled, her body slackening as Carmen leaned in.
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
Carmen was never good at love, but she knew how to be <i>genuine</i>, which, up until this point, had carried her far enough. Genuity came naturally. But still. No one teaches you how to say <i>I am no longer in love with you</i> and <i>I don’t want to never see you again</i> all together.
</p><p>
Carmen found herself counting down the days and hours before her flight.
</p><p>
<i>You’ve got two days, sixteen hours to make this somewhat okay.</i>
</p><p>
Sheena handed her a mug of coffee.
</p><p>
They were silent for a while. Sheena crossed her legs and stirred her coffee forever.
</p><p>
She set the spoon down and sighed. She was angry, and she wasn’t taking it out on Carmen, and Carmen’s chest tightened when she realized how much Tigress changed.
</p><p>
“I hate this.”
</p><p>
“That’s fair.” <i>Two days, fifteen hours, fifty-three minutes.</i> Carmen opened her mouth again.
</p><p>
She raised her mug and took a long, long sip.
</p><p> </p><p>
<b>ii. boy in blue</b>
</p><p>Chase doesn’t get a goodbye. No hint, no note, no calls. He wakes up to an empty room. All traces of someone else coexisting in the same space as him are gone.</p><p>
He can’t say he’s surprised.
</p><p>
That doesn’t make it hurt any less, though.
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
Chase had never liked the rain as a kid. It meant being forced inside and hearing every word his parents hurled at each other, even when he pulled the pillow over his head.
</p><p>
When he got older, he hated it. Dark uncertain skies and the relentless sleet reminded him of Châtellerault. He didn’t know it at the time, but that was the moment he decided to join the force.
</p><p>
Things were different now, though. He’d just gotten a shiny new promotion, now <i>Chief Inspector</i> Devineaux. He was on a new case—not after Carmen, who he tentatively began to call his friend.
</p><p>
 He enjoyed the rhythmic pitter-patter against the back of his jacket. 
</p><p>
His cigarette didn’t fare too well, though. He tried and tried again to light it under the shelter of his palm.
</p><p>
He looked left and right on the street for a bus shelter. No dice. No people, either—mid-afternoon downpour wasn’t very popular in Poitiers.
</p><p>
Instead, Chase came face to face with a man, wearing a long coat with a collar tall enough to cover half his face. Half of Chase felt like he should be scared. The other half just wanted to laugh.
</p><p>
“I believe you have information that is of use to me,” the man said.
</p><p>
“Nakamura,” Chase said, and that’s how it all began.
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
They chose a book shop, because it was the nearest thing that was open, and the most desolate at that time on a Tuesday.
</p><p>
“So, you were the faithful ninja companion of La Femme Rouge. We have never formally met.” Chase pulled a random book off a shelf, meeting Shadowsan’s gaze on the other side. “I could have you arrested, you know, for what you’re doing. I thought you had given up stealing for good. Er—stealing for bad, for good.”
</p><p>
Shadowsan slanted his eyes towards Chase. “Is that what she told you?”
</p><p>
“Yes.” Chase glared at the row of books and released a puff of air through his mouth. “But she also made me promise not to arrest you.” He shot a cold look at Shadowsan, unsurprised to find his expression still stoic. “That does not mean I will help you, however.”
</p><p>
But Chase is Chase, and he couldn’t help but ask, “What is it you want, anyway?”
</p><p>
“Two VILE operatives will be stationed in Saint-Avertin tonight. ACME has intel on them, and I know you have access to it.”
</p><p>
“You do not scare me, Nakamura.” Chase grinned, old but still frenetic. “Besides, aren’t we too old for threats?”
</p><p>
“I am not here to threaten you. I am here to make a deal.”
</p><p>
He scoffed. “Even if that were true, I would never tell you.”
</p><p>
“I believe you will, Devineaux.” Shadowsan met his gaze, eyes dark and cutthroat. “Do you not want to know what really happened to your father that night in Châtellerault?”
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
Augustin Devineaux had suffered the same fate that Chase guessed all those years ago. But it was nice to know. It helped.
</p><p>
He probably shouldn’t have trusted this man, Chase knew. Shadowsan was dangerous. He was probably playing some game of manipulation.
</p><p>
Well, it didn’t matter anymore. Chase had his end of the deal to hold up.
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
The next time they saw each other was actually a coincidence. (When Shadowsan reflects on this moment, and so many others from his past, he realizes how much credit <i>chance</i> deserved.)
</p><p>
Shadowsan had a thing for coffee. Chase just needed a goddamn break.
</p><p>
“Funny seeing you here,” Chase said, sliding into the tiny booth. “Did you make use of the information I so graciously handed over last time?”
</p><p>
He was about to make his escape when Chase slid him a shot.
</p><p>
“It’s good. You should try it.”
</p><p>
Shadowsan glared down at the tiny glass. He certainly wasn’t about to admit that he preferred his coffee cold and sickeningly sweet, Japanese vending machines and a teenage addiction to blame.
</p><p>
“No,” Chase noted, with a slight smile. He downed his own espresso shot and then Shadowsan’s. “Let’s do this again,” he said, slamming the glass down. Chase stood, smoothed his shirt, and left. He had a murder case to crack.
</p><p>
When Shadowsan lifted the shot glass, there was a tiny piece of paper underneath it. He unfolded it, scanning over the number and shoving it inside his coat with a scowl.
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
He knew he shouldn’t.
</p><p>
But he couldn’t get that wicked grin out of his head, and he wondered.
</p><p>
<i>What would it be like to make you scream?</i>
</p><p>
(Oh, and Chase screamed.
</p><p>
He made breakfast, too. His hands were good for many things, and on Saturday mornings, that was making brioche.)
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
So Shadowsan slowed down and stayed. He was in and out of Chase's apartment most days, but there were moments when they could catch each other and talk, or do anything but talk.
</p><p>
But, of course, that was temporary. <i>There is no constant in this life</i>, Shadowsan had told him once, sitting up against the headboard in the dark. It was goodbye, and an apology.
</p><p>
Chase hadn’t said anything, but his hope was painfully palpable.
</p><p>
<i>You are too naïve</i>, Shadowsan thought.
</p><p>
He disappeared the next morning.
</p></div>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. pas de deux</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>let's share a dance and all the hurt.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    
<p></p><div><p>
Shadowsan has one hand pressed lightly against the small of her back, the other clasped in hers.
</p>
<p>
They are two impassive faces circling each other, smooth black velvet and sharp gleaming white, so they can only pick apart the places they can see. Shadowsan’s hair is graying and long now, knotted in a bun at the back of his head. He tries not to break away from the iron-grip of her gaze. He never realized blue could be so scathing.
</p>
<p>
Carmen’s hands rest around the nape of his neck. Then, too suddenly, she closes the distance between them, their chests almost touching. He realizes her fingers are working the ribbon of his mask, and both of theirs come off at the same time. There’s a moment where he catches sight of her bare face—she hardly looks older, just grown, like someone who finally snapped out of a dream and saw the world for what it was.
</p>
<p>
Her eyes widen, seeing the changes immediately. The lines bracketing his mouth are harder, eyes sunk deeper and cheeks hollowed. A decade of seeking revenge has finally settled, and it has chosen to stay. 
</p>
<p>
And, yes, they know this person they see.
</p>
<p>
And, yes, it’s been ten years.
</p>
<p>
Then there’s something hard in his mouth, warm and wet and minty. By the time he manages to take a step back, he’s wearing her moretta and staring at his own mask on her face.
</p>
<p>
“You could accuse me with <i>You followed me</i>, but I think a ten-year long murder spree might be overqualified for <i>You ditched me</i>,” she says, adjusting the oversized angular thing over her face. She returns her left hand to his right, her right settled against his back. “This dance is going to last three minutes and eighteen seconds. That’s all the time I’m asking for you to be silent, and to listen. You owe it to me.” She takes in a breath. “And then you can spit that thing out and you’ll never have to see me again.”
</p>
<p>
Shadowsan’s eyes narrow, but he doesn’t move. Carmen glances at their feet with a frown. She straightens, extends their clasped hands a bit, and she begins to lead. He follows. “I don’t want an apology,” she says, “and I don’t think you want to deliver one. Maelstrom is dead. What’s done is done.”
</p>
<p>
With her unmoving gaze and the blank, mouthless face she wears, the words she speaks almost seem to come from a villain. Shadowsan wonders, for a flickering moment, if part of her has become one—and whose doing that was.
</p>
<p>
The cellists pick up their bows, striking a single deep, resounding note.
</p>
<p>
In one swift motion, Carmen dips him down, almost knocking the breath out of him. “I don’t want answers,” she says. Shadowsan nearly shivers as her mouth ghosts over his ear. “We both know why you do what you do. Hell, we both know you’re here for the last of his apprentices.” Carmen pulls him back up, and they begin their step sequence again. “I won’t try to stop you. And I don’t expect you to switch sides after this.”
</p>
<p>
She breathes in again, the air trapped in the mask too warm and humid.
</p>
<p>
“But I do want you to know something,” Carmen says. “Maybe expecting a happy ending for us was stupid of me. Maybe I should’ve gotten used to being abandoned by then. <i>Maybe</i> I should’ve seen it coming. From childhood, you’ve submitted to no one. You’ve been ruthless before; why couldn’t you do it again?”
</p>
<p>
She blinks and her brows furrow into a tight knot. She realizes she’s losing her train of thought as the words start to tumble out of her mouth. “I could have been happy, you know? Running around the world with Zack and Ivy, thwarting VILE, helping people. I <i>was</i> happy. But there was still so much I didn’t know about myself. Sometimes I felt like a chicken with its head cut off, aimless, with tunnel vision: defeat defeat defeat, and then onto the next. Then you came.
</p>
<p>
“Of <i>course</i> you found me. Of course it was you. You’ve always managed to find me at just the right moment.” She laughs, a hollow sound, shaking her head. Shadowsan watches a strand of hair slip out, landing straight across the mask in a red stripe. 
</p>
<p>
“You left,” Carmen breathes it out, quieter. “You left me angry. And I’m <i>still</i> angry. I’m mad at you for lying to me. I’m mad at myself for letting you leave.
</p>
<p>
“Most of all, though? I’m mad at the whole goddamn world for demolishing every good thing. Because, God,” she says, “I had so much faith in us.”
</p>
<p>
<i>Faith.</i> Shadowsan feels as if someone’s punched all the air out of him when he hears her say it, and he wills himself to keep his eyes trained on hers.
</p>
<p>
“I spent so much of my life believing in humanity. A part of me still holds onto that hope, I think.” Carmen takes her hand out of his and rests it on his shoulder, but the touch is barely there, light and hovering.
</p>
<p>
“I just—I’m so sorry, Shadowsan.”
</p>
<p>
The apology, and his name coming out of her mouth, catches him off guard.
</p>
<p>
She stops moving, planting her feet in place.
</p>
<p>
Carmen takes the bauta off.
</p>
<p>
“All VILE does, will ever do, is take. They will never apologize for it. Neither will fate. And that,” her lip quivers with ferocity, “is fucking <i>unfair</i>. <i>Someone</i> owes you an apology.
</p>
<p>
“So I’m sorry. Because no one else is. I’m sorry that VILE robbed you of the person you tried your hardest to protect. I’m sorry that the world is so cruel. I’m sorry that I was never angry enough, but I’m angry now, even if that doesn’t mean anything. I’d do anything to turn back time if it meant we could’ve seen it coming, but—I don’t blame you for choosing this path.”
</p>
<p>
Shadowsan removes her mask from his face. His gaze is close to desperation, or urgency. His voice almost shakes: “Carmen.”
</p>
<p>
“Fate is no saint. Destiny, though?” She speaks distantly, like she’s not quite there, or talking to herself. “I guess it depends. I like to think it’s a different story.” Carmen lets go of him. She takes a step back and the air around him is too cold and empty.
</p>
<p>
Glassy blue wavers heavily over pitch darkness.
</p>
<p>
“We’ll see,” Carmen says.
</p>
<p>
She turns and walks into the throng of twirling dancers, disappearing behind them.
</p>
<p>
He watches her go, standing under the moving lights, and aching somewhere inside him is the old feeling of letting go.
</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>
Carmen can’t find the siblings.
</p>
<p>
And maybe that’s because she doesn’t want to. Right now, she only sees the woman with slicked back white hair and a sparkling emerald dress.
</p>
<p>
“Take me away from here,” Carmen tells Tigress, and she does.
</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>
Tigress brakes just outside of the address Carmen half-mumbled on their way out of the ballroom.
</p>
<p>
She kills the engine and the darkness swallows them. They stare straight ahead at the empty street.
</p>
<p>
“He knows you trained under Maelstrom the last few years of his life,” Carmen says, strained, as if she can’t even hear herself.
</p>
<p>
“I wouldn’t have let him touch me.” Tigress turns to her. “What, have you no faith in me?”
</p>
<p>
“It’s not that. That’s not why I… asked you to bring me here.” Carmen slumps a little in her seat. “I’m just tired.”
</p>
<p>
“Right. Be glad I’m your beck and call chauffeur, apparently.”
</p>
<p>
“Sheena, I’m sorry.”
</p>
<p>
<i>For what?</i>
</p>
<p>
Tigress looks back to the street, thinks of the way Carmen dipped him low, low, low to the ground.
</p>
<p>
<i>Two years later, and this is how we meet again. Christ.</i>
</p>
<p>
“Don’t be.” She presses something on the dashboard and the passenger door opens. “But I think it’d be best if we didn’t cross paths again.”
</p>
<p>
“Y—yeah,” Carmen mumbles. “Of course.” She climbs out. “Thank you.”
</p>
<p>
The door closes. Tigress drives off into the night.
</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>
Chase is smoking on the terrace when Shadowsan walks out. 
</p>
<p>
“Surprised to see me?”
</p>
<p>
Shadowsan doesn’t say anything, stopping just beside him.
</p>
<p>
“Figured not. Nothing ever really shakes you up.”
</p>
<p>
<i>False.</i>
</p>
<p>
“Smoke?” He holds out the cigarette, smoldering orange in the cool darkness.
</p>
<p>
Shadowsan closes his eyes. “No.”
</p>
<p>
Chase takes another drag. “Three VILE operatives stationed in Antwerp tonight. A fine art auction at the end of the ball. What do you think, Nakamura?”
</p>
<p>
“Believe whatever you want.”
</p>
<p>
Chase looks at him, narrowing his eyes. “Are you—are you okay?”
</p>
<p>
“Chase! Come back inside, the auction is starting.” The voice is female, soft, familiar. Shadowsan can’t quite pinpoint who it belongs to. He doesn’t turn around to find out, but when he opens his eyes, he notices a gold ring glinting on Chase’s left hand.
</p>
<p>
“You better not have anything to do with this.” Chase drops his cigarette on the concrete and crushes it under his foot before heading inside.
</p>
<p>
Shadowsan stares at the garden, all dark shapes under the starless sky. The wind slinks under his sleeves and collar.
</p>
<p>
“I am afraid all I have ever done and will ever do is destroy,” he says to no one.
</p></div>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>*chasulia if you squint*</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. reaching, holding</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>read about vile and birthdays in <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/17475611/chapters/41156159">Checkmate</a> by FallenGabriella (which i IMPLORE you to read) which led to... this ensuing birthday conversation</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    
<p></p><div><p>
One particular story started in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
</p><p>
Then it seemed to still completely in the training room of their headquarters. They were sparring, as they usually did most early mornings whenever they were home.
</p><p>
More specifically, Shadowsan had Carmen pinned to ground beneath him, and she had stopped struggling long ago. She stared up at him with wide, moon-blue eyes.
</p><p>
“Tell me this is a bad idea, Carmen,” Shadowsan whispered, chest heaving above her. A restless energy crackled between them, burning the most at their points of contact—his breath ghosting hot against her skin, his fingers digging into her wrists, where they could feel her racing pulse.
</p><p>
Still, he was ready at any given moment to release his grasp on her and pretend this never happened.
</p><p>
“Even if it were,” she replied, and she never got to finish that sentence. She surged up at the same time that he leaned down.
</p><p>
At the time, Carmen felt like this story was beginning again. Years later it’d be hard to shake the thought it was the beginning of the end.
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
Stealing she could do. The planning, the timing and logistics of it all, whip-fast reflexes, the dangerous split-second she had to make a life or death decision.
</p><p>
This, though? It made her dizzy, how much she didn’t know, and how badly she wanted to discover more. She wanted it rough, hard, fast and faster. She wanted him to make her breathless.
</p><p>
And it was he who always tried to slow her down. This time, she was draped over his lap, biting into his throat.
</p><p>
“Your father would not approve of this,” Shadowsan murmured, hands feather-light on her hips. A last-ditch effort.
</p><p>
She seemed unfazed. “Mm.” She ducked down to move her mouth across his. “What about this?”
</p><p>
He craned his neck back to look at her. “No. He would have me killed.”
</p><p>
Now Carmen stopped, narrowing her eyes at him. “What’s this about?”
</p><p>
<i>Caught.</i> “Um.”
</p><p>
“You don’t really care what he would or wouldn’t think, do you?”
</p><p>
“I just—want to take things slow.” His eyes searched her face for any sign of discontent. “Is that—okay?”
</p><p>
“Yeah,” she breathed, and her smile made his chest warm. “Of course. You should have just said so.”
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>“So, you and Carm, huh?”</p><p>
Ivy rested her chin in her hand, her voice casual.
</p><p>
Shadowsan looked up from his book from where he sat on the opposite couch. He didn’t confirm it right away, but he couldn’t say <i>That is none of your business</i> either, because they’d been by her side much longer than he had and, quite frankly, she was their business.
</p><p>
“Does that bother you?” he asked, finally.
</p><p>
She stared at him. “Honestly?”
</p><p>
He nodded.
</p><p>
“She’s too good for you.”
</p><p>
“Oh, yes. I know that.”
</p><p>
Ivy chewed on her lip, watching, thinking. “But I see the way you get her to smile her stupid smile. So. There’s that.”
</p><p>
Even with the strange flip his stomach did, he just barely bit back a smile.
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
Everyone was a bit in love with Carmen Sandiego, Shadowsan thought. The enigma of her had a dazzling kind of pull. It made people from the other side breathless when they got close enough to her to press a blade against her throat.
</p><p>
But here in echoey rooms with chipped paint and uneven flooring, she was just Carmen. Stubborn, teasing, kind. And they were in love with her, too. He was an observant man. He saw it in sidelong glances, careful fingers tucking long hair away, long conversations at three a.m.
</p><p>
He didn’t feel any pride in the fact that she chose him. Just wonder.
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
“I simply do not see the point.”
</p><p>
They sat on the floor in a room that still had no furniture. It was one of those fleeting moments, of quiet and calm and family, in between all their running around the world. This time they were bickering about birthdays—specifically, that no one knew Shadowsan’s.
</p><p>
“Come on,” Zack said. “It’ll be so much fun. We could throw you a party.”
</p><p>
He stared at him.
</p><p>
“… A ninja-themed party?”
</p><p>
“Cake,” Ivy supplied. “Everybody loves cake.”
</p><p>
Shadowsan grunted something in reply. Truthfully, he hadn’t celebrated his birthday since he was a teenager, and the idea of doing so now was a foreign concept to him.
</p><p>
“We're three orphans without birthdays,” Carmen said. “If we can’t exactly celebrate ours, at least let us celebrate <i>yours</i>. You’re important to us.”
</p><p>
<i>Pulling the “abandoned baby” card again, Red?</i> Player snickered.
</p><p>
“Oh, shush. It always works anyways.”
</p><p>
Shadowsan looked from Carmen to Zack to Ivy, all hopeful faces, and sighed. “Fine.”
</p><p>
And he told them.
</p><p>
There was a stretch of silence and mental math. Then Ivy’s nose shriveled and she said, “Oh my God, you’re <i>old</i>.”
</p><p>
Carmen burst into laughter.
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
There was the thrill, and then there was the aftermath.
</p><p>
Carmen hissed in pain as the hot splashing water hit the gash on her shoulder. Her head felt like someone had ground its contents to a slurry.
</p><p>
She watched water pool at her feet, a mess of blood and dirt. Red wasn’t so pretty like that.
</p><p>
Shadowsan carefully swept her hair back where it stuck to her wound.
</p><p>
She bowed her head with a sigh and rested it against his chest.
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
<i>“I pass. You fail.”</i>
</p><p>
<i>He sheathes his sword.</i>
</p><p>
<i>She’s getting further away, smaller and smaller.</i>
</p><p>
<i>When he is sure she can't see him anymore, he blinks and sighs, listening to the slow beating of his heart that doesn’t feel quite so heavy anymore.</i>
</p><p>
<i>Such defiance, this spitfire girl.</i>
</p><p>
“Tell me something I don’t know about you.”
</p><p>
“You know everything about me. You said it yourself—no secrets.”
</p><p>
“Yes.” She hummed and flipped onto her stomach, her face inches from his. He crooked a brow. “But no. What I mean is, I’m bored. What I mean is, a ninja as old as you has got to have some cool story I don’t know of.”
</p><p>
His brows furrowed; edging on a glare or trying to stop himself from laughing, she didn’t know.
</p><p>
“Come on,” Carmen teased, grinning, “an insane caper? Faculty gossip?”
</p><p>
He tucked a crimson lock behind her ear. “Hm.”
</p><p>
She cocked her head a little bit, egging him on.
</p><p>
“I wept that night after you left VILE Island.”
</p><p>
Her smile disappeared immediately. She searched his face a couple moments, watched his eyes become a bit glassy. “<i>Shadowsan</i>,” she said, close to a whisper. “I didn’t mean like <i>that</i>.”
</p><p>
She pressed her body closer and cupped his cheek and shook her head, swooping down to kiss him.
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
He never said the three words, and as far as she could tell, he never would. She was fine with that—it was just another part of him and this strange partner dance.
</p><p>
Then, over the mountains of Geneva, he watched the helicopter she was in explode as it was shot out of the sky.
</p><p>
He waited for a single red figure to burst through the midair wreckage and glide down towards the ground.
</p><p>
Nothing.
</p><p>
He’d never felt that sense of loss before. He couldn’t breathe. His throat felt like it was scraped to nothing, like he’d screamed for hours, and maybe he had. There in the sunny streets, as he stumbled blindly forward and shoved past strangers, there was only one thing on his mind: <i>I cannot live without you.</i>
</p><p>
She wasn’t at the rendezvous point. He stopped somewhere, looking around at the empty side road, breathless, the air around him weighing a thousand tonnes and threatening to suffocate him there on the spot.
</p><p>
Someone touched his shoulder.
</p><p>
Shadowsan pulled her into his grasp, clutching onto her coat and meaning to never let go.
</p><p>
“I thought—” he gasped, choking over his words. “I thought you—”
</p><p>
“I never boarded,” Carmen said into his shoulder, “I never boarded the helicopter. I found out about VILE’s plan as soon as I got there, but I couldn’t reach you, and then it took off and—” She pulled back, cupped his wet face. “I’m here. I’m okay. I’m here.”
</p><p>
“Carmen, I love you.” He said it right there, the only thing he felt like he <i>could</i> say. Nothing else mattered more in that moment than the fact that Carmen was alive. “I love you. Please, just—do not make me lose you.”
</p><p>
Carmen searched his eyes for a moment.  “I love you, too,” Carmen said. “I’m not going anywhere.” She pulled him down until their foreheads touched.
</p><p>
He closed his eyes.
</p><p>
Sitting in seiza in the tatami room, a murderer opened them.
</p><p>
Something muted and faint always thumped in his chest when he thought of that memory now. It usually resurfaced during moments like these, after he had come home and crossed a name off his mental list and wiped his katanas clean.
</p><p>
It didn’t hurt to think of the memory. To him, it—along with so many other moments in his life—only solidified one thing: that he’d always been the villain in his own story.
</p><p>
Through the open shoji he looked out at the scraggly maple in the garden. Old and weathered like him, but not evil—just existing.
</p><p>
He wasn’t quite envious.
</p><p>
Behind him, on their mount, his swords shone under the moonlight.
</p></div>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>another sparring leading to kissing scene gosh i know</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. first breath</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    
<p></p><div><p>
<b>1 month later</b>
</p>
<p>
The sun is setting and Matsumoto Castle is empty.
</p>
<p>
Hands deep in her pockets, Carmen lets the heels of her boots clack on the old wood floors.
</p>
<p>
She stops to study each scroll painting before moving onto the next. This one shows a woman in a kimono, her coy smile making Carmen ask, <i>What secrets are you keeping?</i>
</p>
<p>
She smiles back at the woman.
</p>
<p>
Outside, it’s begun to snow.
</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>
Tucked into the garden on the Castle’s eastern grounds, there is a small bridge overlooking jade green water, shadowed by bare, spindly trees shivering in the wind.
</p>
<p>
A woman in red studies the shimmering water below, watching snowflakes flutter down and melt away, her arms crossed over the railing. Her shoulders feel too heavy. Exhaustion is set deep in her bones, but it isn’t jetlag—older and more suffocating than that. 
</p>
<p>
Two steady streams of breath condense in the brisk air.
</p>
<p>
“<i>I court the moon on my loneliest night / The moving grass holds my blood / The sky accepts my body / On this day I need no forgiveness.</i>”
</p>
<p>
Shadowsan stops beside her, staring straight ahead. She doesn’t look at him. 
</p>
<p>
“Hideo’s last poem,” he explains. “I found it in his room when I arrived. Not a death poem, but it nearly reads like one.”
</p>
<p>
“Do you think he was ready?” she asks.
</p>
<p>
“I am not sure that knowing would have made it any better.”
</p>
<p>
“No,” Carmen agrees. She straightens and turns to him. “Just tell me if Tigress is dead.”
</p>
<p>
To that, there’s the long answer, involving sleepless nights, cursing the world, and contemplating destiny, the amalgamation of moments leading up to this one and this one and this one, and the people at the forefront of it all. But, no, Carmen didn’t ask for that.
</p>
<p>
“She is not. Neither are her partners.” Carmen’s shoulders sag, a little, at the news. She doesn’t know if she should sigh or cry or leave, because she feels like doing all three. She just squares her jaw and keeps looking at him. “Would it matter to you if she were?”
</p>
<p>
Her voice is wobbly: “Yes.”
</p>
<p>
Shadowsan doesn’t question any further. He gets it.
</p>
<p>
“How exactly does the future begin?” she asks, speaking more so to herself and the entire garden than anyone else.
</p>
<p>
“Perhaps by returning the daisho.” It’s then that she notices he has come to the bridge empty-handed. “It felt like the right thing to do,” he continues, even though the swords might be too stained now to still retain the same nobility. “I wanted to return them before I am eventually… apprehended.”
</p>
<p>
Carmen’s brows pinch together. “What?”
</p>
<p>
“I have countless bounties on my head,” he huffs plainly. “I am barred from entering nearly every country VILE has smeared. I will die either in exile, on the run or in hiding, but truthfully—” He pauses, lets the coming admission roll around in his mouth before he says it aloud. Then he sighs, heavy and deep and ten years old. “Truthfully, I am tired.”
</p>
<p>
Carmen opens her mouth to speak. The realization jars her—that if he was leaving that much of a trail, Shadowsan had been killing <i>messy</i>. That he was not only a grieving man, but a blind one, too. He had never been so consumed by something to approach anything <i>blindly</i> before.
</p>
<p>
And, for some reason, it’s this raw, exposed side of him that makes her finally see—and begin to understand.
</p>
<p>
“You can’t turn yourself in,” is all Carmen manages to say, sharpening her blurring vision on him. Suddenly a wave of panic surges forth in her chest, this urge to shake his shoulders and make him listen to her. “You’ve been chained by this fucking cycle your whole life, you—you can’t—you <i>deserve</i> to break free.”
</p>
<p>
And Shadowsan—he doesn’t smile, but for the first time, the deep lines etched into his face soften slightly. He meets her desperate gaze with a steady one. “There is no future for me, Carmen.”
</p>
<p>
“<i>No</i>,” Carmen says, and she actually grabs both of his wrists now, gripping them like she’s afraid he might dissipate into the air right in front of her. He doesn’t fight it. “You can’t just give in.”
</p>
<p>
He says her name again and it sounds like an apology and feels like a slap to the face.
</p>
<p>
She gulps, the air cold and sharp in her throat and lungs, and she lets go of him, taking a step back.
</p>
<p>
“I deserve retribution,” Shadowsan says. “You of all people should know that.”
</p>
<p>
“You deserve justice,” she says with too much bitterness.
</p>
<p>
“This is justice.”
</p>
<p>
In the ensuing stretch of silence, Carmen tries to locate and smother the source of fire in her chest, and she realizes maybe she’s been searching too long. 
</p>
<p>
Ivy was right. This starts to seem like it was a horrible idea all along. Seeing him again wouldn’t change anything—it would only remind them of the hurt. Soon enough, Carmen is sure, another decade will roll over and she’ll still feel that dormant numbness in her chest, threatening to break through and blossom with bloodied thorns and ripped flesh.
</p>
<p>
<i>This is justice.</i>
</p>
<p>
No. Not to her, it isn’t.
</p>
<p>
So Carmen makes a decision.
</p>
<p>
“Come to San Diego.” She says it quietly, keeping her gaze trained on the stream below. <i>Come home</i> is what she means. <i>Be selfish</i> is what she means, <i>and let me be selfish too</i>. She turns to him.
</p>
<p>
He’s already shaking his head. “Please do not do this.”
</p>
<p>
“You don’t have to make up your mind right away, and I know it’s—it won’t be like before, but—”
</p>
<p>
“Carmen, <i>stop</i>.”
</p>
<p>
<i>Why?</i> Oh, and there it is, that sleeping fury stirring awake. Right there next to her sternum, or maybe somewhere in her throat. Everywhere beneath the skin. <i>Would you rather I watch them lock the wrong person away? They are going to win again, and again and again and again.</i>
</p>
<p>
It’s a painful burn, washing over her entire body so quickly that she almost wonders if it’s meant to feel good—and a part of it, the chance to explode and break open and bleed out, sounds like it might. Still, she forces it all down, tells herself to swallow and inhale and say something else.
</p>
<p>
“This is exactly what they wanted to happen,” Carmen says, her voice quiet but shaking with buried hate. “You’d be giving them everything.”
</p>
<p>
“What they wanted has already happened, Carmen.” They both know this, of course. VILE won the fight the moment he boarded the plane to Japan and never looked back. <i>Look at us.</i>
</p>
<p>
“You’d be safe with us. Player, he could help you find a new identity, you could—”
</p>
<p>
“Do you know how dangerous that would be for you?” Shadowsan snaps, lips quivering and teeth bared. 
</p>
<p>
She meets his gaze.
</p>
<p>
“Yeah,” Carmen breathes out.
</p>
<p>
Shadowsan’s jaw tightens. He closes his eyes for a moment, tries to let the coldness calm him down.
</p>
<p>
“I cannot return. Not right now. I need—time. Can you—” his words, nearly a whisper, trip over themselves, get trapped in his throat. It’s too big of a favor given what he’s done, he knows, but he asks it anyway. “Can you give me that?”
</p>
<p>
She doesn’t think, just needs this. “Yes.”
</p>
<p>
He nods, barely, and turns to leave.
</p>
<p>
<i>Where will you go?</i> she almost asks, but then she thinks maybe it’s better she didn’t know.
</p>
<p>
Shadowsan stops at the end of the bridge, his back to her, before vanishing into the night.
</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>
They stare at each other from opposite platforms of the same train track.
</p>
<p>
Sometimes the present aligns by chance. Sometimes it spends years and years pushing and pulling two people together and apart, so much that they forget trying to guess how it ends. 
</p>
<p>
Does hope die, though?
</p>
<p>
His dark, heavy form. Her bright and brave one.
</p>
<p>
A distant train roars and then comes rumbling forward. They lose sight of each other, coat tails dragging in the wind.
</p></div>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>
  <a href="https://visitmatsumoto.com/en/miscellaneous/matsumoto-castles-east-side-story/">the eastern garden</a>
</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. homecoming</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    
<p></p><div><p>
<b>1 year later</b>
</p><p>
A man arrives at the doorstep of Carmen Brand Outerwear, bringing with him nothing but a slim briefcase and the weathered coat on his back.
</p><p>
Another with tawny hair and still-youthful eyes opens the door. His smile is warily kind. “Hey.”
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
They don’t make rules; that feels too serious right now. They don’t overstep, either, or try their hardest not to—it’s a lot like walking on eggshells. Thinking too much about where to go next, feeling trapped in one place.
</p><p>
Other things are unspoken, like how she slinks after him when he wakes up from a nightmare and they sip their water quietly under the blinking lights of the kitchen while the bad dream fizzles out between them. Like how she tosses him a staff, a challenge, and he catches it without even looking and glares once at her before they begin to spar. Like how hands brushing together eventually intertwine when no one is looking.
</p><p>
It works, for a while.
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
He’s floating, untethered, and he needs some kind of control.
</p><p>
His hair nearly reaches his hips now. He finds scissors and borrows Zack’s shaver.
</p><p>
Carmen catches him in the hallway, glances at what he’s holding. “I could help you with that?”
</p><p>
He pauses, then says, “Please.”
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
Sometimes the whole team is gone for months on end. Zack and Carmen invite Shadowsan along, but it isn’t out of need—Team Red has managed for ten years without him. He argues that he would compromise their safety, which is the only time Ivy will agree with him. He ignores the thought that he would be of no use, anyway, because it makes him feel too weak.
</p><p>
So he’s alone in the building, and in these moments he doesn’t feel like a serial killer, not really—more like a young child, trusted enough to be left by himself. He stares at the ocean and the city and contemplates running away for the second time, and whether or not that would be selfish or a service. Suddenly that thought seems childish, too. Solitude back then felt like a drug, and now he writhes in his own skin.
</p><p>
At first, Shadowsan retreats to his room. It’s exactly the same, just dustier. No one had touched a thing after he left.
</p><p>
If he really lets himself go, he is able to meditate. The practice used to come easily, but most days his body is a hard line of tension and he finds himself too impatient and twitchy to truly relax. Shadowsan is drawn to the training room, lashing out at the same punching bag he did the last time he was like this.
</p><p>
The building is huge, but there are only so many halls he could get lost in before figuring the place out again. He starts going up to the rooftop. Never wanders too close to the edge, just stays somewhere near the centre and regards the giant clouds.
</p><p>
The days pass so incredibly slowly. 
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
It’s one of those quiet afternoons, dusty sunlit air and lazy yawns.
</p><p>
He has a kettle on the stove which he tends to when it whistles, pouring the water over loose leaves.
</p><p>
Shadowsan brings the tea tray to his room. Zack’s already waiting for him outside. “You wanted to see me?”
</p><p>
He nods, motioning for him to enter. They sit on the tatami, tea cups steaming between them.
</p><p>
“Uh, so, why?” Zack clears his throat, feeling awkward in his cross-legged position. “I mean do you have something on your mind, or…” 
</p><p>
“No, not particularly. I just wanted to have tea with you. Is that all right?”
</p><p>
“Oh, yeah.” He slumps in relief and takes a cup. “Great, actually. Thanks.”
</p><p>
After a few moments, a breathy laugh escapes Zack’s lips. He shakes his head with a smile. “Sorry. Nothing. This just—ah, it just reminded me of old times.”
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
“Does the world move against us?”
</p><p>
Carmen’s been doing this thing recently. Asking questions she knows the answers to. Still Shadowsan feels some need to humor her. Like he owes it to her.
</p><p>
Her head is on his lap. He slips a finger beneath her choker, a mindless, idle thing he used to do to get her attention, and looks at her.
</p><p>
She stares up at him with those eyes full of wonder. The world has cheated those eyes, he thinks. The world has marred them.
</p><p>
“No. The world just moves.”
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
Ivy blocks out his entire existence. She never looks at him, let alone speaks to him. She speaks less to Carmen, who is tired of apologizing, even though she probably hasn’t yet given one sincerely enough.
</p><p>
Then one day she drops a plate in the kitchen, porcelain shattering all over the floor. He runs in at the sound. When he joins her on the floor, she doesn’t say anything, and they quietly pick up the pieces together.
</p><p>
After a while, he ventures, “What do you need?”
</p><p>
Ivy stops to stare at him, bewildered. “From you?” she says, finally. “Nothing.”
</p><p>
“Fair.”
</p><p>
She starts to brush the smaller bits into a dustpan, and then stops and sighs. “I lied. I do need something.”
</p><p>
“Yes?” 
</p><p>
“Be careful,” Ivy says, trying to keep her hushed voice even. “It doesn’t matter what else you do. Just be careful with her. She—I know this might be hard to believe, but she needs you just as much as you need her.”
</p><p>
Shadowsan nods, even if he can’t quite grasp her words. “I will.”
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
He stares at his hands, scrubbed obsessively clean but still dripping with that warm wet crimson stickiness. They tremble. His whole body trembles.
</p><p>
Two hands come to cover his. They are warm like the sun. This woman is also red, but she is everything good and bright and just in this world, and it suddenly seems impossible that they are here in this room together. That he woke up gasping and she’s here to bring him back.
</p><p>
“It was a nightmare,” she reminds him. He can’t help the overwhelming feeling that racks his body too quickly—of hopelessness, fear, guilt. “It wasn’t real. I’m right here.”
</p><p>
He drops his head onto her shoulder and begins to cry.
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
They are arguing about the same thing they always argue about.
</p><p>
“<i>Why do you still believe I am a good man?</i>” His throat is on fire. His chest heaves in the way it only does when he is furious and nothing else. “Why do you keep redeeming me over and over?”
</p><p>
He can’t remember how they got here. All he knows is that he needs to lose control, stop thinking for a moment, uncage the monster living in him.
</p><p>
“It is <i>sickening</i>, Carmen, how many screams I have heard. How unremorseful I was to cease them,” he seethes through teeth. 
</p><p>
“You’re not the same person you were then,” she presses. “They <i>made</i> you into that. You’ve <i>changed</i>.”
</p><p>
“I’m no better than them,” he growls, hearing the doubt in her voice. He has no one to kill anymore, it’s true, but retiring his swords didn’t erase their gruesome history. Boxing himself into their headquarters and trying to fit somewhere in their family dynamic didn’t change who he had once been.
</p><p>
“But the one thing worse than what I have done?” Shadowsan bites out quietly. He nearly hesitates—and then forces himself to push through because, <i>fucking damn it</i>, he <i>needs</i> her to understand, one way or another. “It is the fact that you can still love me after all this. How can you justify that? Tell me, Carmen, which one of us is more insane?”
</p><p>
That shuts her down. Shadowsan watches Carmen’s mouth snap shut and her body freeze up and the last of her hope fizzle out and die right in front of him, like the death of a tired fire that’s burned for too long.
</p><p>
And this, perhaps, is where it ends.
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
“Red! Geez, it’s pretty early, what are you—” He jumps. “Whoa. Uh, hi. You’re on Carmen’s laptop?”
</p><p>
“The spare, yes. I need you to do me a favor.”
</p><p>
“Um—”
</p><p>
“Give them a detour.”
</p><p>
“What?”
</p><p>
“They will be back this afternoon, yes? Give them a detour. I should be finished packing by Tuesday morning.”
</p><p>
“Finished… packing? What do you mean?”
</p><p>
It’s funny, the way he smiles out of genuine relief for the first time. Speaking the words out loud makes him feel like he can finally breathe.
</p><p>
Player just stares at him. He looks so <i>sad</i>. He looks so <i>young</i>. “I’ll do it.”
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
My name is Suhara Nakamura. I have killed forty-three people. I can lead you to almost all of their bodies.
</p><p>
Carmen catches him at the precinct after he utters these words. They don’t cuff him, just lead him away as she bursts through the doors. She’s screaming. Ivy and Zack and two officers are holding her back, and she’s too dazed to really fight them back, struggling, crying, pleading.
</p><p>
Please don’t do this.
</p><p>
Please, we can fix this.
</p><p>
Please, I love you. Don’t you believe me? You’re not a monster. We can fix this.
</p><p>
“<i>Who are you doing this for?</i>” she finally yells.
</p><p>
He glances back at her once, and though his expression is apologetic, it is also set deep with determination.
</p></div>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>